Wisconsin town offers lessons as Stroudsburg debates plan for new high school

Sunday

Mar 23, 2008 at 12:01 AM

For years, people could walk or drive from the center of town, down Main Street and come upon the high school that had stood there since the 1920s. To some, the place was beloved, the home of memories and of successive generations of graduates.

DAN BERRETT

For years, people could walk or drive from the center of town, down Main Street and come upon the high school that had stood there since the 1920s.

To some, the place was beloved, the home of memories and of successive generations of graduates. To others, years of growth and repeated efforts to renovate had been unkind; the building had not kept up with change.

This description may seem familiar to those who have been following the dilemma surrounding the future of Stroudsburg High School.

The district's school board is deciding whether it should continue with plans to renovate the existing building on West Main Street or build a new one on Chipperfield Drive instead. It has already resulted in angry meetings, flurries of letters to the editor, accusations and a petition campaign against a new school.

But the preceding story also chronicles the choice that confronted — and divided — another town, Two Rivers, Wis., more than a decade ago.

Economic arguments bedeviled the residents of Two Rivers, as they are doing in Stroudsburg's still-unfolding drama. But in Wisconsin, a civic and historical dimension colored much of the discussion. The same applies to Stroudsburg, even if it has been less explored.

"It was about the building," said John Webster, who still serves as Two Rivers' school board president, reflecting on the conflict in his city. "But it was also about the community."

Two Rivers, a city of about 12,000 people, sits on the shores of Lake Michigan, some 85 miles north of Milwaukee and about a half-hour from Green Bay. Washington High School, a brick-faced, three-story building, rose in 1921. In succeeding decades, new wings and classrooms had been added. To Webster, these changes "bastardized" it.

But 1997 marked a crossroads. Space was getting tight and the science labs were woefully out of date, an argument echoed today in Stroudsburg. Even more urgently, the piecemeal renovations to Washington had rendered it non-compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The cost of renovating the school was eventually set at nearly $20 million, and new construction at just $21 million. The numbers seem trifling when compared to Stroudsburg, where the tab ranges from $87 million for renovation to $107 million and up for new construction.

But, as in Stroudsburg today, arguments raged in Two Rivers about which number was more accurate and whether either one was inflated or understated.

"It was an extremely difficult decision for our community," said Randy Fredrikson, superintendent of the district, both then and now. "The difficulty was making a choice between tradition and holding onto the symbol of Two Rivers, and weighing that against the needs of modern technology. It was just a very difficult thing to work through. Both arguments are great arguments."

Ironically, the community had been through it before, when Washington High School was built slightly outside of what was then considered downtown. The Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter even printed, word-for-word, a 1920s-era story on the debate at that time. "People were amazed about how history was repeating itself," said Dennis Hernet, who managed the paper's bureau in the city until 2001.

Fredrikson and Webster and his fellow school board members proposed building a new school on the outskirts of town. The project could be a boon for future development outside the city, they argued; others feared it would cause sprawl. As the school moved to the outskirts, water and sewer lines would extend there along with it, which town leaders hoped would spur development and help reboot the housing market.

But the fate of the old school needed to be handled gingerly. "I remember, when we decided that we needed a new school, I knew that what would be critical for the community was how the old school would be reused," Webster said.

The board thought it found the answer — using investment tax credits to convert the school into senior housing. But an apparent about-face by the city, which dedicated those tax credits to another conversion project, effectively killed the idea.

The first referendum went in front of voters in March 1997 and proposed a bond issue of nearly $24 million — for a new high school, remodeling the existing school as an elementary, and adding onto the district's middle school and another elementary building.

Voters shot it down by nearly a 2-to-1 ratio, and the debate simmered for three more years.

The dispute attracted the attention of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which mentioned the city as the site of one of many ongoing conflicts over the fates of neighborhood schools in a report titled "Why Johnny Can't Walk to School: Historic Neighborhood Schools in the Age of Sprawl."

The report assailed state policies that financially favored building new instead of renovating existing schools, and effectively diluted tightly knit communities, among other topics.

"It would be absurd to argue that every historic neighborhood school can or even should be saved," the report said. "But it is equally absurd to argue that a school's age automatically means it cannot be preserved or adapted to meet modern educational program needs."

The report disdained what it saw as prevalent "mega-school sprawl," in which large buildings were erected and severed from the rhythms of community life. "It's hard to have community-centered schools when schools are not in the center of the community — or anywhere near it," the authors of the report wrote.

Since then, state policies on reimbursement have changed. In Pennsylvania, they generally favor renovation now. Both Pennsylvania's Department of Education and the Department of Community and Economic Development promote the special benefits of keeping schools downtown.

But in Two Rivers, both sides of the debate dug in their heels. Historic preservationists and traditionalists did not see the benefits of a new building.

"If an older building can be equated with a poor education," one parent asked during a debate, "why would anyone want to send a child to an Ivy League school?"

Proponents of the new site saw the existing school as threadbare, even dilapidated. Meanwhile, the project went through four architects, and more referenda were put in front of voters in succeeding springs and falls. The project totals differed, and the board distributed head-to-head comparisons of each project; some referenda proposed a new school, while others floated the idea of renovation. They failed each time.

In 2000, with the city and its residents growing beleaguered by the standoff, the board hit on a solution — invite the enemy into their camp.

"We took 22 to 30 people, including about five people from the schools (who favored the project), and then a bunch of naysayers," Webster said. "We stacked it purposefully against us."

The board supplied this group with all the data it had seen and used to inform its decision-making. "A lot of them were good people who didn't take the time to study it," Webster said. "(We said) 'Tell us which way to go.'"

In April of that year, voters faced their sixth referendum on the project. They approved the new school and rejected the renovation, 57 percent to 43 percent.

"I think people were just sick of it. They just wanted to get it over with," Webster said. "Enough information had gotten out."

On Nov. 3, 2002, students, teachers, administrators and the town dedicated Two Rivers High School, a one-story brick building reminiscent of modern high schools built in the Poconos. Located off Highway 42 on the east side of the city, its gym, library and cafeteria were built to expand to house a future enrollment of 2,000, or more than double its current student body, which has long been stagnant.

The victors in the battle over the new school have been able to write the history, but even they acknowledge that the project has exacted consequences in ways that were both underwhelming — and sometimes pleasantly unexpected — on the fabric of Two Rivers.

The new school never catalyzed housing on the outskirts of town, and a neighborhood never grew up around it. After the school was built, officials discovered that the sewer capacity could only accommodate 35 homes. "I think there is some disappointment that we haven't seen residential growth," Fredrikson said.

On the other hand, Eggers Industries, a door manufacturer, opened a plant nearby.

Construction crews razed Washington High School, to the dismay of traditionalists. Plans for senior or low-income housing on that campus never materialized. Eventually, the land, which fronted the water, was sold to a developer who built exclusive condominiums, with a portion reserved for a public park.

But the demise of the neighborhood did not happen. If anything the opposite occurred.

"The residents in the area of the former facility feel great that it's not there anymore," newspaperman Hernet said. "No more kids vandalizing property, leaving trash on the streets or loitering.

"That area of town had a very high senior population and seniors feel threatened by youth," he continued. "Two Rivers was no different."

Webster pointed to a revitalized downtown, with new restaurants, coffee houses and bistros on Main Street as a possible byproduct of the move. While he still lamented that the senior housing project on the high school grounds never came to pass, he hoped the condos would work out for the best. "Maybe, long-term, it will be better," he said. "I'm not too sure."

Webster also spoke in glowing terms about the new building's effect on student learning. "The educational experience is much, much better," he said. He referred to the impact of the upgraded science and technology as "relatively phenomenal."

But Fredrikson, the superintendent, said the same thing would have happened had the renovation been enacted. "In either area, we would have had similar growth in curriculum," he said. "It would have improved with the extensive remodeling program."

Now, five years after the building opened, Fredrikson said resentment lingers in the hearts of some residents.

"I think one of the things I reflect on a lot is to think what could I have done not to divide the community so much," he said. "I think it ended up dividing us more than we anticipated.

"There's still the concern that we've lost the tradition of being downtown," he continued. "While time has a way of healing wounds, the issue is still there."